Life Style

Hong Kong restaurants are pulling out all the stops for Mother’s Day on May 11, 2025, crafting lavish menus to celebrate the occasion.From elegant spreads at Salisterra, in Admiralty to Chiu Chow tasting menus at Pak Loh Chiu Chow – various locations – this year’s offerings blend tradition with creativity.Expect delectable desserts, premium seafood dishes, and fabulous free-flow options. There are also mother-child cooking classes with a fantastic lunch afterwards.Whether it’s a premium brunch or a nostalgic traditional Cantonese feast, Hong Kong’s chefs are ensuring every mum feels cherished. Here’s where to book for a meal as extraordinary as she is.1. SalisterraTreat mum to one of the best views in Hong Kong at Salisterra alongside refreshing Mediterranean cuisine.The three-course shari...

First they drop the onions into the pot. Then in go the chickpeas and garlic cloves, all under the watchful eyes of chef Luis Montoya.For a group of women in Miami, Florida, mostly mothers and grandmothers, this one-pot meal can solve a challenge: how do you prepare easy and affordable healthy meals in a community considered a food desert?Inside the Overtown Youth Centre in the US city, the women slice and dice and squeeze their way through a recipe for chickpea soup with lemon and herbs, a recipe inspired by the Mediterranean, a region known for populations that can live to 100 and more.“The most difficult part is hitting the pressure button on the pressure cooker,” says Montoya, the South Florida chef leading the class, as the women prepare ingredients near the electric pots.Chickpeas in...

Where other concept menus often lead with esoteric ideas or atmospheres that contextualise their signatures, the front cover of Socio’s new menu hits us with just facts: it introduces their community-driven bent, which focuses on reusing waste ingredients from other restaurants and bars in SoHo.Upcycling spare/waste ingredients – usually by way of centrifuging, redistilling, using sous-vide or other means of processing – is not a new concept. The question is always whether a waste ingredient still yields enough flavour to produce a delicious drink. This is what we immediately wondered with Socio’s Oyster Shell, which reuses about 4.4kg of oyster shells monthly from Caine Road fish eatery and market Hooked.The exterior of Socio at 17 Staunton Street, Central. Photo: Jocelyn Tam“The shells d...

Dubai residents can now have 24-carat gold coins delivered to their homes in less than an hour as super app Careem targets millions of Indians in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).Dubai-based Careem Technologies, a spin-out from Uber Technologies’ Middle Eastern subsidiary, has launched a campaign that allows users to buy up to 10,000 dirhams (US$2,700) of physical gold in a single order.The gold is supplied and certified by Tanishq, the flagship brand of India’s biggest jeweller, Titan Co.The roll-out of the new feature coincides with Akshaya Tritiya, a Hindu festival in which buying gold is considered auspicious.Indians make up about a third of the UAE’s population of over 10 million people, and the country continues to attract expats with the promise of jobs and low tax rates.

May in Hong Kong is all about relaxed and casual restaurants serving comfort food and traditional fare, from Thai soup noodles and Japanese udon to marinated goose from a famed Taiwanese brand, as well as Singaporean-style chicken rice from a Lion City stalwart.Over in Macau, there is an exciting new food hall presenting trending names and restaurants. Read on to see which new places are set to tickle your palate this May.1. Yakiniku ShoThe latest addition to Central’s line-up of yakiniku, or Japanese grilled meat restaurants, specialises in tender Kuroge Wagyu beef. The restaurant features only two set menus priced at HK$790 (US$102) and HK$490 and offers full service – the staff help with the grilling. Highlights include thick-cut prime beef tongue and other selected rare cuts of beef.Sh...

During World War II, within the walls of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, a Jewish prisoner secretly penned a short note and hid it inside a violin he had crafted under harrowing circumstances – a message to the future that would remain undiscovered for more than 80 years.“Trial instrument, made under difficult conditions with no tools and materials,” the worn note read. “Dachau. Anno 1941, Franciszek Kempa.”The origins of the violin, built in 1941 by Franciszek “Franz” Kempa while imprisoned by the Nazis at Dachau, near Munich in southwest Germany, remained unnoticed for decades.It was not until art dealers in Hungary sent the instrument out for repairs – after having stored it for years among a set of bought furniture – that its history came to light.Art collector couple Tamas Talo...

Singer and actress IU has gifted fans a surprise set of selfies, sparking speculation about a potential comeback.Earlier this week, IU shared 17 photos to her personal social media account with the caption, “May is coming.”The post included a mix of behind-the-scenes moments on set and close-up selfies showcasing her flawless, make-up-free complexion.One image in particular captured fans’ attention: IU wearing a headset in what appears to be a recording studio, deeply focused on something off-camera.In one image, IU is wearing a headset in what appears to be a recording studio. Photo: Instagram/dlwlrma

In the kitchen of the historic Korea House in Seoul, chef Cho Hee-sook – the “godmother of Korean cooking” – is deftly massaging three batches of blanched spinach, and seasoning each emerald bundle with doenjang (soybean paste), ganjang (soy sauce) and gochujang (chilli bean paste), the holy trinity of Korean fermented sauces.“Some people just assume the Korean dining table is very meat heavy because Korean barbecue is so popular,” she says, without breaking her rhythm as she works the different sauces into the spinach. “But, actually, much of the Korean territory is mountainous, and we get a lot of different vegetables.”The season of spring greens, known as bom-namul, is highly anticipated in Korea; it is a time where a glorious bounty of herbaceous, sweet, nutty and bitter plants with co...

Author Dennis Tafoya remembers his time working in accident and emergency in a hospital in Doylestown, Philadelphia, in the 1980s.One night, a call came in about a fire at a farmhouse-turned-meth lab, but when doctors attempted to help, the burn victim refused care and eventually died.“It got me thinking about who ends up in a burning meth lab in the middle of the night,” said Tafoya in a recent call with Philadelphia newspaper The Inquirer.That incident was the seed of the idea that, decades later, became Tafoya’s 2009 novel Dope Thief. It has since been adapted into a series of the same name on Apple TV+, written, directed, and executive produced by Peter Craig – who co-wrote the screenplay for 2010 crime thriller The Town – and executive produced by legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott.Scot...

3.5/5 starsIn Vital Signs, the converging career paths of two ambulance paramedics at very different stages in their lives provide the unusual backdrop for a soul-searching drama rooted in today’s Hong Kong, with characters pondering the essence of home as they reluctantly face a wave of emigration from the city.The fourth feature by writer-director Cheuk Wan-chi and her first since the 2014 comedy Temporary Family, Vital Signs comes across as a notably more mature work by the multi-hyphenate who is also known as a stand-up comedian – even if its themes are not always as tightly woven as they could be.When we first meet Louis Koo Tin-lok’s veteran ambulanceman Ma Chi-yip, he is not responding to emergencies at some chaotic disaster scene but quietly fielding the latest appeal from his visi...